How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

May 16, 2023

For the past five years, journalist Emily Hanford of American Public Media has been reporting on how children learn to read. She’s revealed a profound disconnect between what kids need to learn and what they are taught in many schools. Her reporting has been a wake-up call for parents, educators and policymakers across the country. Emily visited Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies for this conversation with ISPS Director Alan Gerber and Eric Patashnik, chair of Brown University’s Department of Political Science, about the history and politics of reading instruction, why things went so wrong, and how to get it right.